Hurling So Far So Good and More to Come

By: Enda McEvoy

 

So Clare and Cork it is again in the Munster final, for the second year in a row. But that’s only half the story. That’s not even half the story.

 

Big crowds. Thrilling finishes. Nine-point leads amassed and squandered. Ghost goals. Red cards. Umpires convinced of the excellence of their own eyesight. Late equalisers. Late winners. Managers not talking to the media one day, then chatting away happily to them two days later.
We knew the Munster round robin would be interesting. We never dreamed it would be this much fun. And whether it’s a man in red or a man in saffron and blue who lifts the silverware on July 1st, this will be a hard earned and richly deserved title.
Clare began the championship with a defeat on Leeside. It could have broken their spirit and ended their season. Instead it proved a springboard for three wins on the bounce. The Banner are going better than they have at any time since the glory that was 2013.
While the form team of the summer has been a tag that’s changed from week to week over the past month, Clare have built up serious momentum. They’re potential Munster champions and potential All Ireland semi-finalists. That’s a statement that could not have been made in late May.
Cork? A late surge at Semple Stadium saw off Waterford and guaranteed them a return to the same venue for the provincial decider. They were unbeaten in the round robin: two wins, two draws. Add in their three victories en route to last year’s Munster title and they’re unbeaten in seven. Another crowd in the zone.
But let’s not forget Limerick, who only a week ago were the team everyone was talking about. Although it went badly wrong for them in Ennis last Sunday, the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater. Look at what John Kiely’s men have already achieved this season.
They won the Munster League. They finally escaped, after years of fruitless jailbreak attempts, from the harsh and unforgiving penitentiary that is Division 1B. They were National League semi-finalists. They emerged from the Munster championship round robin, which is more than Tipperary and Waterford did. They are prospective All Ireland quarter-finalists. Up to last Sunday they hadn’t lost a match in normal time all year.
Would you have settled for that package back in January if you were a Limerick supporter? You wouldn’t have merely settled for it. You’d have bitten several people’s hands off for it.

 

Looking at it through a long-term lens, then, their defeat in Cusack Park was little more a bump in the road for a young and highly promising team. So what? This is the kind of thing that happens to young and promising teams all the time.
It didn’t seem that way at teatime on Sunday, of course. Clare 0-26 Limerick 0-15. Oh dear. But it was the visitors’ third outing in as many weeks, they were well overdue a setback and Anthony Daly among others had given due warning beforehand about Limerick’s bad record in Ennis over the years.
John Kiely, the losers’ manager, put his finger on it afterwards when he observed that his charges had been “missing the X-factor we had up till now”. So too did his opposite number Donal Moloney. “Limerick used up their energy against the wind trying to hold us in the first half.”
Here was the latest instance of an interesting phenomenon engendered by the introduction of the round-robin provincial system: a match that had it taken place a week earlier or a week later might well have produced an entirely different result. At any rate it would have produced an entirely different contest. Clare are not 11 points a better team than Limerick. Nobody of a saffron and blue hue would claim that for a moment. So it’s a Munster final for Clare and Cork, and a prospective All Ireland quarter-final date with Kilkenny for Limerick. Not easy. Not offputting either.

 

Approaching late June, and on foot of the introduction of the round-robin system in Munster and Leinster, we’ve had more good hurling than we’ve ever had at this stage of a championship before. Better still, there’s even more to come.